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I’ve loved your analysis and this series. But I don’t follow the diagrams here. you write, “These runners have their hip joints behind their ankle joints in midstance” — but I cannot really see a difference between the two sets. Would it be possible to draw a line on the pictures to show what you are intending? My apologies for my dullness here.
ReplyThanks for your feedback about the images, Rob. After a decade of looking closely at runners in the flesh, in videos and in photos it’s hard for me to know what other people see. In future I’ll put lines in (as soon as I work out how… 🙂 )
ReplyGreat post, I must say though that although I have mastered the alignment during running I always end up with sore calves and I always land on the balls of my feet. What is it that I could be doing wrong?
ReplyHi Marino. Sorry for the long wait you’ve had for a reply! Something has gone wrong with notifications from WordPress and I wasn’t aware of your comment. Sore calves nearly always indicates your torso is too stiff. Check out the subsequent post on core action — you can even try walking on your bottom like I do in the video as a warm-up — and if that doesn’t help I would recommend Feldenkrais lessons, such as the Core Action Programme I sell in my store on this website or finding yourself a local practitioner. Good luck!
ReplyThanks for another great post. I don’t think enough skipping goes on in school playgrounds these days. Just dug out the skipping rope for a bit of practice just now!
Jane
Reading you article, something popped into my mind: Jason Robillard describes in his book how it is so much easier for him to run on slippery surfaces since the time he started running barefoot. This matches your conlusion that your center of gravity (or hips) should be directly above your foot: if not, you will be sliding on the surface. Barefoot running seems to force you to apply this style of running all the time, since you would be scrapng your bare sole on the ground, and no one seems to like this kind of friction on the soles.
ReplyYes, I think that’s right. There are a couple of other factors as well, however. The first is the core action, since moving forward over your foot and releasing your weight from your foot at toe-off is a coordinated movement of your whole body and requires that your core action be really good. Runners can get in trouble with this when transitioning to barefoot or super-minimalist shoes if they tighten their core and lift their chest, preventing an easy forward movement and creating shearing stress in the metatarsals that leads to second metatarsal stress fractures. If you relax and let your body move in an appropriate way over your feet, the improved sensitivity from barefoot running can refine your weight shift so that you move your core really well and indeed slip less. The other factor has to do with friction and pertains specifically to ice: Nicholas Romanov, developer of the Pose Method, has videoed himself running on an ice rink to demonstrate that in running there is no push off. I talked with a client of mine who specializes in ice and friction and consults to tire companies (how lucky am I!) because I suspected that this wasn’t what his video demonstrated, and she said that the less friction there is in the landing, the less the ice will melt and the better the traction will be. So if your foot comes down neatly with no scuffing or swivelling or slippage, you will actually have better traction. That’s what I believe Romanov’s video demonstrates — that Pose helps you land well, rather than the patently false proposition that you don’t push off in running (since force plate analysis shows that 100% of runners do push off!).
ReplyYour comment on Pose Running that “the idea that you should actively pull your foot from the ground towards your butt is mistaken.”
I think their philosophy of Fall and Pull makes sense. I agree with you about their neglect of upper body movements, but can you share your opinion on why you disagree with the pulling part?
ReplyPlenty of things make sense on paper but fall apart in the real world, and this is one of them. The hamstrings don’t work actively to remove the foot from the ground in running–EMG studies show that’s not what happens. It’s actually accomplished through elastic recoil and the physics involved in the fact that the foot has been still while on the ground and must accelerate to catch up with the body and get in front of it again. Dr. Mark Cucuzzella summarizes it well here: http://naturalrunningcenter.com/2013/07/30/posing-question-proper-running-form/
ReplyHi Jae,
Interesting link. It is totally opposite of Pose running. Dr. Mark Cucuzzella says we should pull and drive the foot down to the ground using the hip extension muscles. He then advises NOT to push when the foot is loaded and just let the spring release. The work is being done before midstance, rather than after midstance which Pose method advises.
Do you agree with that? I haven’t tried it, but it sounds like heavy pounding on the ground.
ReplyPrabish, I agree with Mark that we should just let the spring release when the foot is loaded, but I don’t advise accelerating the foot to the ground using the hip extensors–that should also just be “allowed” to happen.
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